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Newt Gingrich Grades Trump Cabinet Members from Rubio To Hegseth, “Still Learning”

by in Daily Edition | June 4, 2025 2 min read

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich, photo: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (R-GA) is currently on a press tour promoting his new book, Trump’s Triumph: America’s Greatest Comeback.

On a recent episode of the podcast Next Up with Mark Halperin, Gingrich was asked to play a game of word association regarding “Trump figures.” Gingrich was told to reply with one, two words maximum.

When Halperin said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Gingrich said: “brilliant job.” For Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, “remarkable.” Gingrich praised everyone Halperin mentioned, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (“indispensable”), Attorney General Pam Bondi (“excellent pick”), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (“astonishing job”), but paused when he replied to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (“still learning) and FBI Director Kash Patel, who he said was “growing.”

(Note: Johnson is not technically part of the Trump administration, having been elected to Congress by Louisiana voters and to the Speakership by his congressional peers.)

When Halperin said Tucker Carlson, Gingrich replied with more than two words: “I don’t understand it.” When asked to elaborate about the former Fox News star, Gingrich replied: “he seems to have a very strong grip on some people, and I’m underwhelmed…” Gingrich added that Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk (whom he called “amazingly influential” and who wrote a blurb for Gingrich’s book) is “much less on the fringe” than Carlson.

Halperin admitted that he was surprised to learn that Gingrich doesn’t have a personal relationship with Carlson, to which Gingrich said: “We all have limits to how much time we have.”

Note: Gingrich had time recently to speak with Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom on his podcast. As seen below, Gingrich predicts the 2028 presidential election will be fought between Vice President JD Vance and Newsom.